


Body & Soul

by Vehement



Category: BioShock 1 & 2 (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Atlas (BioShock) is Real, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:33:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29596995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vehement/pseuds/Vehement
Summary: When you see him for the first time, your first thought is that Atlas is smaller than you’d imagined him.
Relationships: Atlas/Jack (BioShock)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 23





	1. At Last

**Author's Note:**

> This is an idea I came up with to help me work through some writer's block, so the chapters will probably all be pretty short. Enjoy.

When you see him for the first time, your first thought is that Atlas is smaller than you’d imagined him.

He’s a little bit shorter than you, and skinny. Well - not _skinny,_ exactly, but lean. Wiry. Certainly nothing like the strong-jawed, broad-shouldered image you’ve seen plastered all over the walls of Rapture. He has a narrow face, a sharp chin, with thin lips pursed around a cigarette that sits at the corner of his mouth.

His eyes are brown. Not warm at all, like brown eyes can be sometimes, but cold - cold and shrewd and calculating. There’s an edge to him - a hint of danger, of ruthlessness, of thinly suppressed violence.

He’s standing across from you, on the other side of the fallen bouncer. You never even heard him approach. It was the smell of his cigarette that gave him away. When you look up, he’s watching you with narrow eyes and a puzzled frown, like you’re something new, something he’s never seen before.

One of his hands is tucked casually in his pocket. The other has a pistol aimed at your chest.

He flicks away his cigarette and calmly crushes the butt under his heel.

“Well now,” he says. His voice sounds different, in person. “Just who _the fuck_ ’re you?”


	2. Someone to Watch Over Me

The pistol presses firmly against the base of your spine.

"Keep your fuckin' hands up," Atlas says, emphasizing his point with a sharp shove. You are very, intimately, aware of how much damage a bullet would do to you at such a close range. You're trying not to think about it. You focus on keeping your fuckin' hands up.

"That's right," he drawls. "Nice and high, where I can see 'em."

This is not how you expected your first meeting with Atlas to go.

You'd tried to explain, tongue-tied and feeling suddenly awkward, who you were. That you were the one who had come down in the bathysphere, that you were his friend, that you had been the one listening to him over the radio. He had stared at you with increasing incredulity as you stuttered and stammered until eventually you fell silent under his cold stare.

Instead of recognizing you and pulling you into a hug (as you'd secretly hoped he might), or reaching forward and shaking your hand (as you more realistically imagined he would), he had shoved his pistol against your spine and told you to get a move on.

"And don't you even fuckin' _think_ about trying anything with those plasmids," he says.

You're pretty sure he thinks you're a splicer, one of Ryan's thugs. But if that's true, why hasn't he killed you already? You don't know what's going on - why he doesn't recognize you. But then, you're not sure why you're surprised. This entire day has been one long chain of events going from bad to worse. 

_Where,_ you ask, _is he taking you?_

"Home," he says.


	3. On the Street Where You Live

Home, apparently, is an abandoned hotel called _The Meridian_. It is a tall, imposing building that looks out onto a main thoroughfare in what was once an affluent neighborhood. The entrance to the hotel is a bronze archway, two stories tall, with massive swan statues on either side. Hanging above it is a long white banner with a stylized “R” in red ink.

A barricade has been built under the arch with broken furniture and wooden boxes. There’s a tall, flat piece of metal attached to a pulley system that you guess can be raised or lowered at will to let people in and out. There are people standing above the barricade, watching as you and Atlas approach. Their faces have the same cold, unreadable expression that he does. Every single one of them has their weapon trained on you.

As you move closer, one of the men above raises his hand. He’s a tall, barrel-chested man, with a receding hairline and a thick, ugly scar across his cheek. You stop.

“What’ve you got there, boss?” the guard asks.

“Splicer,” Atlas says. “Looks like Ryan’s cooked up a new one - I’m bringing it in to take a closer look at it.”

You want to protest, explain that there’s been some kind of mistake. That you’re not a splicer - not really. But you don’t get the chance. Before you can do anything the guard nods and, turning, waves to someone on the inside. There’s a loud, metallic clanking noise as a crank is turned and the barrier begins to slowly lift.

“Now don’t go getting excited,” Atlas says, his voice a low warning in your ear. “Remember to keep your hands up nice and high. Try anything, and I’ll kill you myself.”

You almost laugh at his threat. You aren’t stupid. You know what it means, that Atlas thinks you’re some new kind of splicer. That he wants to take a closer look at you. No - it - he called you _it_.

You look back over your shoulder at him. _And what will he do to you if you don’t try anything?_

Easy enough to guess - a cold metal table, thick leather restraints keeping you in place, bright lights from above. Voices - people standing over you, looking down at you. Cutting you, asking you questions, recording your responses.

And then they’ll do something worse, something that… changes you. It will hurt. It will hurt a lot. You’re sure of it. You… remember it, somehow, even though it hasn’t happened yet. Thinking about it makes you feel strange, almost like an itch coming from inside your head. It’s… unpleasant. You stop thinking about it.

Atlas narrows his eyes. His mouth twists into a frown. You don’t recognize the expression on his face, but you think he seems… disturbed. Like you’ve managed to catch him off guard.

“Don’t you worry about that,” he says brusquely. “Just remember to keep-”

_Your fuckin’ hands up. Right. You’ve got that part._

He nudges you in the back with the pistol again, and you walk forward into the hotel.


	4. Solitude

They put you in a small, windowless room and leave you there.

It’s completely empty - there isn’t even a chair for you to sit in. You position yourself as far away from the door as you can, and - when no one immediately comes to torture, kill, and dissect you - you allow yourself to relax a little. You sit on the ground, leaning back against the corner.

You’re exhausted. Now that you’ve stopped moving, you can feel all the places you’ve been hurt. There are a lot of them. You can’t actually remember how many. It doesn’t really matter. You’re still alive and they - the splicers you’ve fought - are dead. Most of them, anyway.

You’ve had very little time to think about everything that’s been happening. It’s been - you’re actually not sure how long it’s been, how long you’ve been down here. You haven’t had the chance to sleep but it feels like a long time, like your whole life. You can barely remember what happened before - the farm, your family, it all feels like it happened to someone else.

You close your eyes. You’re more tired than you’ve ever been in your whole life, but you can’t sleep. Something keeps nagging at you, keeping you awake.

Why didn’t Atlas recognize you?

It doesn’t make sense. Though, honestly, there’s very little that does make sense in this place. You can’t help but wonder if maybe you’re the crazy one. You’ll be very glad to get out of here. You wish you’d never come down in the bathysphere in the first place.

Atlas had been the first person who talked to you, when you arrived. He’d been - nice. He’d helped you, guided you. In a city full of people trying to kill you, Atlas had been your one friend. Had he… forgotten you, somehow?

You wish they hadn’t taken all of your things. You might have been able to talk to him over the radio. Maybe then he’d understand, remember.

You just need a chance to talk to him.


End file.
